Today at universities around the country chemists are celebrating the much-needed upgrade of a major UK scientific facility.
This facility is of a scale beyond the wildest dreams of many of our international competitors. Stretching over 500 miles from end to end, it will support over 150,000 scientists performing world-leading research. It will provide education and training for a huge number of students and it will help build and sustain companies across the UK.
It might sound like the next Large Hadron Collider, but this facility isn't another piece of 'big ticket' scientific infrastructure.
Rather, today sees the official launch ofCore Capability for Chemistry Research - a £15 million Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)-funded network of equipment designed to reinvigorate university research, a vital component of the UK science base. It is effectively the UK's largest scientific facility, but formed of universities the length and breadth of the UK.
Broadly speaking science has done well since the beginning of austerity in 2010. In tough times, we've been fortunate to have a government that recognises the economic and social value of investing in research, with a Chancellor who claims that science is 'a personal priority' and a Prime Minister who refers to the life sciences as a 'jewel in crown of the UK economy.' The science budget, covering non-capital expenditure, has been held at a constant £4.6bn, and, despite an initial reduction, capital investment has fared relatively well too.
But this support for science has been a bit of a double-edged sword. Announcements on investments in scientific infrastructure are typically made by a minister sporting a high-vis jacket and hard hat showing off some great new 'scientific legacy.' It's easy to do that for large facilities and sometimes what science needs is a big building - an ISIS, Diamond Light Source or Square Kilometer Array - but the problem is that flashy new facilities, while necessary, are not sufficient to strengthen our science base and instil confidence in our research ecosystem.
Our universities are an essential component of the UK science base, but their impact on local, regional, and national economies is much wider. They need investment to support a 'triple-helix' of capacity: performing world-leading research, providing world-class education and training, and maintaining strong links to business and their local economies. But investments in individual institutions don't make for big numbers to announce - not like large-scale investments such as the new Crick Institute - and standing in front of a newly upgraded fume hood doesn't make for such an impressive a photo op for the minister.
That is why the Royal Society of Chemistry very much welcomes the EPSRC's investment being announced today. It's fantastic news that the government has recognised that the university research base is itself a facility that must be supported and, whilst the individual amounts that have been invested in each institution may not sound that exciting, their impact will be.
Four chemistry techniques were identified for this pilot project: nuclear magnetic resonance, atomic level microscopy, mass spectrometry and X-ray crystallography. Broadly, these can be described as tools for investigating the structure and composition of materials, but such rough strokes belie the detail. Using this equipment researchers will verify the success of a reaction, they will investigate the manner by which proteins fold or misfold (for example in Alzheimer's disease), and they will determine the structures of new superconductors and materials for storing hydrogen. They will achieve all this, and things that we can't even imagine now, because that is the beauty of scientific endeavour.
So, today we celebrate. We celebrate that universities can continue to support researchers, students and businesses; we celebrate the discoveries and advances that they'll be able to make; and we celebrate that we can do this at a time when funding structures have made securing this type of investment more difficult.
But we aren't complacent. This £15 million has upgraded equipment at only 15 universities and provided funding for equipment in only four techniques. Chemists have become increasingly adept at sharing equipment where it's feasible, but there are far more excellent researchers than this money can reach. This investment is a one-off boost, not a long-term strategy for maintaining our strength.
Fortunately though, the government is looking to form such a strategy, with their Science and Innovation Strategy due in the autumn. And the chemistry community has a number of things to say: we need to support the breadth of our science base, we need investment in equipment on all scales, we need capital and non-capital funding to be aligned, and, although we appreciate it's not easy to find more money for research, we need that too.
The UK's total investment in research and development across the economy has remained at approximately 1.7% of GDP for the last 15 years, a period that has seen our international competitors actively increasing theirs. The USA and Germany already spend 2.8% and 2.9% respectively - and many countries have set higher targets.
Both government and business in the UK have fallen behind on this measure. But research shows that public spending encourages private investment. That is why the RSC is calling on all sides of the debate to commit to increasing the UK public spend on research (currently less than 0.6 per cent of GDP) to the EU average (0.7 per cent of GDP) by 2020-21 to keep us as a competitive knowledge economy.
Hopefully many of you engaged with the recent formal consultation on UK capital spending for science - whether directly or through the live Q&A that was recently hosted at Occam's Corner. Alongside that is an 'informal' consultation on the Science and Innovation Strategy more widely, which is open until the end of this month. With a new Science Minister getting his feet under the desk it's essential that the scientific community takes this opportunity to raise any pressing issues and gaps. We're very much looking forward to working with Greg Clark to help government to see the value of increasing investment and support for our science base. If we're to continue to keep our 'jewel in our crown' then this will be essential. If we don't, then in a few years, we'll have a lot less to celebrate.
Richard Walker is the physical sciences programme manager at the Royal Society of Chemistry. He can be found on Twitter as @rjwlkr Entities 0 Name: UK Count: 11 1 Name: Royal Society of Chemistry Count: 2 2 Name: Core Capability for Chemistry Research Count: 1 3 Name: Physical Sciences Research Council Count: 1 4 Name: Occam Count: 1 5 Name: USA Count: 1 6 Name: Greg Clark Count: 1 7 Name: EPSRC Count: 1 8 Name: Richard Walker Count: 1 9 Name: Linda Nylind Count: 1 10 Name: Science and Innovation Strategy Count: 1 11 Name: Germany Count: 1 12 Name: ISIS Count: 1 13 Name: RSC Count: 1 14 Name: EU Count: 1 15 Name: Crick Institute Count: 1 16 Name: Hadron Collider Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1rukvoa Title: U.S. Seen as Weak on Global Research Collaboration Description: WASHINGTON - Amie K. Lund's long-distance collaboration with a researcher in France was a modest one. They published a paper together, exchanging drafts by email. But Dr. Lund, who studies the effect of air pollution on the heart and brain, wanted to learn an innovative cell-culture technique that her colleague had developed in his lab, and, as she said with a laugh, "you can't just email a protocol."
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